I wanted to be happy
for you.
You had so much
to celebrate.
It was cold
and the winter wind
had blown the sky away.
I was young;
not to make excuses,
but it just didn’t occur
that this would change you.
We had spent
all our summers
high and getting higher
and now,
here you were,
off to be grown up.
The betrayal of a lost boy.
I was too rigged in,
too much invested.
I had lost my hope,
to a needle
and a candle flame.
Never mind that old,
black shape shadow
that held me in the corner;
man,
he was a terrible waste.
I should have been there then.
Should have shook your hand.
Maybe if I had,
you wouldn’t need me now,
when I am too far gone
for friendship.
You see;
I fought that monkey on my back.
Battled the jungle for a while.
Swam crocodile infested rivers
and climbed a mountain of my own despair.
When I reached the top,
I looked out
and I was so chocked
that I did see a wasteland,
just a lush and green world.
Alive.
Growing.
Living.
Then I realized
that I was alive.
I have travelled
far and wide
since then,
even found a new companion
to share the road with me.
I heard things went south for you
a few years ago
and I tried to reach out,
but you wouldn’t return
my messages.
I know that I wasn’t there
to shake your hand
and tell you how
smart and lucky you were,
all those years ago.
Remember,
when you went on
where I couldn’t follow?
Let me tell you,
that I know you suffer now,
felling neither smart, nor lucky.
But there’s a forest
that you can only see
from the mountain,
and a few rivers
between here and there.
If you leave now,
you just might make it.
I can’t go with you.
Once more,
you’re on your own.
HG – 2017
